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Where Not to Move

Where not to move, based on margins of victory in the 2012 election (h/t Mike Flynn):

Then there’s this, also courtesy of Mr. Flynn:

Appalachia looks promising. Indiana, too.

See also this essay by Daniel Greenfield on cultural separation (h/t VFR). Money quote:

… Forget physical secession for the moment and think cultural secession. Physical secession, even if it were achieved, would do little good without putting cultural secession first. And if you cannot manage cultural secession, then how will you ever achieve physical secession?

Cultural secession means cutting away the educational and entertainment culture of the left out of your home. It means creating your own alternative education and entertainment and grouping in communities that act as a support structure for traditional values. Is it easy? No. It involves sacrifice …

… The traditionalist goal has to be to form communities that are capable of preserving the family despite the power of the state. This is not easy and will become harder as time goes on. But it is what has to be done to reclaim the country.

Raising children within a traditional community is a revolutionary activity. It is an act of cultural and demographic defiance against the progressive state. The traditional community is becoming the new underground of progressive countries. It is the place where parents pass on subversive ideas to their children and teach them to pass on those same subversive ideas to their children …

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19 thoughts on “Where Not to Move”

The funny thing is that the 2 points of this post are in contradiction. If one believes in cultural separation, then it makes no difference what the majority of the people believe where one lives. This is why Orthodox Jews do just fine in liberal New York City. And I do believe in cultural separation. I see no significant difference between Democrats and Republicans, but I sure see a big difference between traditional groups like the Amish and Orthodox Jews versus the rest of the country. Daniel Greenfield’s essay is great.

Gee, that honestly had not ever occurred to me. But then, it wouldn’t be the first time. I used “lip service” for years in childlike innocence until I finally learned its origin and true meaning. Then I stopped. Have you?

Eh, isn’t the clear meaning of “lip service” service only in speech (i.e., with the mouth; i.e., with the lips) rather than in deeds? I don’t see any warrant for an obscene meaning. What does the OED say?

Forget about where you would like to move. I’d be curious to know where you live right now. I would wager most of you would-be worshippers of the heartland are dwelling in deep blue urban centers and wouldn’t last ten minutes if you had to live in rural South Dakota.

Oh, hell yes. I live in the Peoples Republic of Berzerkeley. It’s very nice, and I have managed to raise traditionalist kids here. But I grew up in the red states, and culturally feel much more at home in them. Whenever we sojourn in such places it amazes me how much easier it is to negotiate social transactions, how much cleaner, better organized and commonsensical is the entire social milieu. Everything seems in such places so much more *wholesome.* I end up feeling more relaxed and at home, and less like an interloper, as I have always been in the Bay Area.

But I grew up in the red states, and culturally feel much more at home in them.

I would expect this to be a pretty common sort of background here (it describes mine, at least the Canadian equivalent). Obviously most of us will have spent time in “deep blue” areas because that’s where the career opportunities for smart people are.

I straddle two worlds as a Cincinnatian who spends too much of the year in Washington. People are much more pleasant and sane (though less polished and fit) in the Midwest than in Beltway land. Like others here, I wander in exile on the coast.

Cincinnati is an interesting case, though, in that it is a rightwing city (among whites, anyway). We are metroconservatives (per Derbyshire) without leftist tendencies — good German papists who are traditionalist, civic oriented, and realistic about ethnic realities. Well, maybe that is a general Midwestern characteristic (minus the socialists in the upper Midwest — I blame the Scandinavian blood there, with apologies to Kristor’s kin). I find folks from Michigan to Missouri culturally familiar. I know my people; we’ll survive le deluge.

I live in a semi-rural exurb located very near a small city/port town and relatively near Seattle, a medium city. I personally think more traditional types should head on up, there’s plenty of room and the social mores away from the Seattle nexus are more hospitable to traditionalist views.

Yes, rather than discuss the graphs, or the actual topic of the thread, I’ve an idea: Let’s all change the subject something about which “A Morphous” would like to talk. Because I won’t be able to sleep at night if I can’t justify my existence and aspirations to an anonymous liberal heckler.

He is asking a good question, though. Other than “that’s where the jobs are,” I personally can’t think of many good reasons to live in a coastal city (I live in a rural college town). The information revolution seems to me to have sharply curtailed the reasons for living in a city. You can get good porcini mushrooms or imported sausages online with virtually no effort. And that’s a metaphor for all the ways information technology has weakened the cultural reasons for being in a city.

I live in Ypsilanti which is the blacker suburb of Ann Arbor so of course theres much liberalism but alot of race realists also and growing for obvious reasons there is in the Ann Arbor area not an insignificant amount of Christians my brothers church is in Ann Arbor and is made up of mostly young college kids and is quite big and while it has a bit of the more modern music it is from what he says doctrinally sound and they manage to make a good amount of converts many of the liberal Ann Arborites are just kinda goofy kids that don’t know much and are sucked in from an early age and many have taken notice of the defects of liberal hedonism in their lives and the area.

What you are proposing (cultural separation) already exists, at least in Brazil. Maybe you should study more the example of the “Congregação Cristã do Brasil”. They essentially stopped in 1920, which is exactly what every christian reactionary should love. Man wear almost only formal suits, and woman wear almost only long skirts and they wear veils. At Church the men seat on the left and the woman on the right, separated. Some photos:

2 of my grandparents are of this church. Their main problem is a massive exodus of young people … few between 18 and 25 stay on the church, as it has very heavy requirements, one really needs to separate itself from our diabolical post-modern western culture, few are apt to the challange, and from the 4 children of my grandparents, none of them remained in the church. I think this is a greater problem for middle class families which have children going to the universities, so the church compensates by evangelizing poor people.

I considered joining it, but I the cloths requirement is a problem, and also I think it would probably be a huge problem that my wife is catholic (a real one, not a pseudo-catholic like most are). I am Presbiterian.

I don’t know if there is a church like this in the USA. It is not exactly the same as the Amish because they are not rural, nor is not being rich a focus, so in this sense they are more similar to the Orthodox Jews, except that they are christian.

I think you should study this real life example deeply, since it is exactly what you are proposing, and it is always good to study how it is faring for other people.

I live right on the border of Appalachia. It’s gorgeous, the people are friendly, and the churches are full. There are downsides, such as the obesity and meth epidemics, but it’s possible to avoid the worst of those if you’re conscientious.